


The Girl Next Door

by FloingMachines



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: AU, F/F, Florabella, Neighbors AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloingMachines/pseuds/FloingMachines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabella Summers has finally moved into an apartment of her own. The day she moves in she meets the mysterious girl next door. Adventures follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The apartment building was low to the ground, lacked an elevator, and had windows that opened up only a few inches at best. However it was the only thing that I could afford at the very moment and thank god for that because I guess I can’t say that I regret anything I’ve done since that day.

           The bathroom was white and clean (which was better than some London accommodations) and the kitchen was better than my last attempt at an eating area, which was frankly only an overturned cardboard box with paper plates and a real safety hazard of a hot plate.

           I struggled up the narrow steps in the mid-June heat with a box full of clothes in my arms. I was walking up the stairs backwards, causing more effort to be expended on the simple task of trying to move my items from my old, beat up Subaru to my third floor apartment.

           It seemed like no one was home as I started bringing some of the more valuable items up the steps. By the time I had even realized that someone had lived across the hall, I was carrying up some of my recording equipment- and my keyboard, which had been safely enclosed in packing peanuts and the most secure box I could get my hands on.

           I kicked open the flimsy apartment door and it slammed into the adjacent wall with an earth shattering crash. I cringed and pushed in my keyboard just as I heard the other door open.

           I spun around, still holding the box that was nearly bigger than I was and saw a tall girl leaning against the doorframe. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and red hair was pouring down her shoulders. She was in a large tee shirt from some 90’s band and shorts to accommodate the shirt that would’ve been a dress on me, but was nearly a crop top on her.

           “Are you the new girl I was told would be moving in?” She asked, her accent light.

           I looked around like I was expecting her to be talking to someone else and then shrugged. “I guess. I mean I’m the only one here, aren’t I?”

           “I suppose you are.” Her green eyes pierced me and I felt unnerved as she looked at me as if she were scanning me.

           “Could you help me out and carry this in?” I asked, nearly buckling under the weight of the box at this point. She continued to look at me as if she was indifferent and then suddenly in a couple of strides were walked across the hallway to me and lifted the box out of my arms. “Thanks.” I gasped as she carried it in and put it on the kitchen counter.

           “In the ten years I’ve lived here, I’ve never once been in this apartment.” She remarked.

           “You’ve lived here for ten years?” I asked.

           “The rent’s reasonable.” She said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The air conditioning sucks ass, but like I said, the rent’s agreeable.”

           I laughed. “Can’t argue with that.”

           “What made you move here though? Besides the super appealing stairwell and of course- the rent.”

           “Well my last arrangements were dodgy at best and I was cooking off of a hot plate, so this just seemed like a more suitable option.”

           “You can cook many things off of a hot plate.”

           “And I would know. But I’m happy to be kissing the stupid thing goodbye.”

           “Can I ask why you had a hot plate and not a stove?”

           “I wasn’t making enough money for a stove at that point. I just finished up some serious work and got a steady job at a liquor shop downtown so I’ve got a decent income source for the time being. So voila, I have a stove and a nicer apartment now.”

           “You seem slightly less annoying than the last neighbor I had.” She said as she turned around to walk out.

           “Thanks?” I replied hesitantly, but she was gone. The mysterious redhead neighbor was there one moment and gone the next.

           I started unboxing some of the studio equipment to make sure it wasn’t damaged, but like I said she was there one moment and gone the next. She came back in holding a bottle of wine with a hastily tied ribbon around the neck.

           “Consider this housewarming.” She said, handing it to me. “And I expect good deals at the liquor store.”

           I smiled, despite myself, as she walked out. All the sudden, a thought occurred to me: I didn’t even know her name.

           “Wait!” I called and she glanced back. “I don’t even know your name.”

           “Call me Flo.” She said and sauntered out of the apartment.

           Little did I know, that this was the beginning of something that I had no control over. This was the extraordinary beginnings of meeting the girl next door.


	2. Chapter 2

            It was probably one in the morning. _Scratch that_ , it was one in the morning and music radiating from across the hall was keeping me awake. There weren’t any instruments; it was almost entirely a voice singing lyrics to songs from the 80s and songs I didn’t know.

            I grabbed a robe from the floor and shuffled out into the main living room of the apartments. I had been here for two weeks and I hadn’t seen Flo since, which I found kind of strange but I hardly had any choice but to just go with it.

            I turned on a lamp and made my way to the front door, flinging it open and squinting across the hall. Light seeped out from under Flo’s door and light singing so I walked across the hall in slow motion and reached for the handle of the door and pushed it open, surprised to find the door unlocked.

            I stepped into the apartment and immediately the first thing I saw was Flo dancing around _naked_ and singing the assorted songs that had woken me up.

            “Shit!” I exclaimed and backpedaled out the door.

            Flo looked like she had nearly jumped out of her skin as I tripped backwards out the door and back into the hallway.

            She grabbed a blanket off her couch and wrapped it around herself and she quietly padded out into the hallway. Her presence was strange it was like it was loud and quiet at the same time.

            Flo poked her head around the door, her hair losing some of the scary quality in the dim nighttime lighting. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was in a loose bun on the back of her head, wisps flying away from her face. Her makeup was mostly under her eyes with the bags and under the strange circumstances and the red tasseled blanket she looked beautiful in one of the oddest ways possible.

            “Were you-uh-making the noise?” I stammered, averting my eyes from her. She wore a soft, tired smile on her face.

            She shrugged. “I suppose so.” She walked back into her apartment before beckoning me in after her. “Are you coming?”

            I nodded and followed her in. She grabbed a clothespin off the counter and pinned the blanket around her as she walked into the haphazard kitchen. She took two wine glasses off the top shelf and set them on the kitchen table and filled them with white wine.

            “I suppose you came over to tell me to quiet down.” She said, handing me one of the wine glasses as she took a sip of hers, pale red lipstick staining the rim.

            “Yeah I guess so.” I didn’t really know how to respond.

            “I’ve been singing for the past week. You just haven’t noticed until today.” Her voice sounded far off like her mind was elsewhere.

            Flo wandered over to the couch and sat down, crossing her legs. I awkwardly sat down next to her, my hands changing their grip on the stem of the wine glass as we sat in silence for a couple moments. Nervous energy rolled off of her, nothing like what had happened earlier.

            “Oh.”

            She shrugged. “I’ve heard you playing piano.”      
            “Okay.”

            “I think it’s good.” I wondered how much alcohol she had had that night. Her thoughts seemed to trail off. However the only bottle I could see was on the table and it made me wonder if she was naturally like that, without anything impairing her otherwise. It made me wonder.  

            “Thanks.” I took a sip of the wine and shuddered at the bitterness a little bit.

            “I’ve been making up words to them if you want to hear.”

            “Is that what you’ve been singing?”

            She nodded and took another sip. “I like the one where is starts off all quiet and mysterious and then gets louder. It’s got more emotion than the rest of them. Is anything on your mind?” Her sentences were like unfinished thoughts, you couldn’t hope to get the entirety and you couldn’t hope to answer the whole thing.

            “Do you want to…hear it?” I asked and stood up off her overly plush couch.

            “Alright.” She followed me across the hall into my dim apartment and I sat down in front of the piano, turning it on and placing my hands lightly on the keys. Flo stood over me (Still drinking the wine) and watched me start to play the first few chords before laughing a little bit and humming absently.

            “It seems that I have been held in some dreaming state…” Her voice was wispy, almost astronomical as she said it, her hands coming to rest on my shoulders as she swayed slightly. “No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love…” A single teardrop hit my neck.

            I stopped playing and turned around. It was obvious that she was trying not to cry. “You alright?”           

            I stood up (not saying much compared to her) and wrapped my arms around her waist, feeling her shake a little bit under my touch. She wasn’t saying anything; I hardly thought she was breathing.

            “Have you ever been in love with someone you couldn’t have?” She asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question so I stayed silent as she took another drink of her wine, set it down, and rested her head on the top of mine. I still couldn’t tell if she was drunk. “It’s awful. It’s so awful.”

            “Who is it?” I asked. My thumb was rubbing circles on her back, trying to get her to stop shaking. I honestly had no idea what was going on, I hardly knew her, but for some reason I trusted her and was willing to let her blow through _whatever_ this was.

            “No one you would know.” She straightened up and looked down at me, her hand cupping my cheek. I knew my skin was probably red, but the way she looked at me was something I couldn’t ever hope to describe. Her eyes were green, brilliant greens and greys and browns and they crackled with the mist of almost tears and some sort of electricity.

            It was fast, her lips against mine, but it wasn’t so fast that I didn’t have time to respond. I was caught off guard about the way I kissed back, the way our tongues briefly hit each others and then she pulled away, startled like a small animal and stumbled backwards like I had what seemed like forever ago in her apartment.

            “I have to go.” She said, but tripped over some of my wiring and collapsed on the floor of my apartment. She fell asleep on the floor instantly (or she was knocked out. I couldn’t tell). I struggled to pick her up and drape her across the lonely chair in my living room before walking back into my bedroom and collapsing on top of the blankets.

           

            The next morning the apartment was empty and the door was locked like the entire night was a dream. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and glanced around. Last night must’ve been a dream; there were no signs that anything happened.

            Except the piano was on. Never in my wildest dreams would I leave the piano on, it wastes the battery, wears out the lifespan, and craps out my power bill. I sighed and shut it off, facing reality. Last night was not a dream.

            I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know why Florence had kissed me and I didn’t know why I had kissed back, I just knew that I did and something exploded. It felt like something had exploded in my brain and behind my eyes and it just wouldn’t leave my thoughts so I made my way across the hall and opened the door, expecting it to be unlocked just as it was the night before.

            I wandered around inside the apartment until I found her bedroom. She was curled up in one corner and I sat down on the edge of the bed, trying not to stare and she murmured assorted words she seemed to have put together in a mad scramble for connection.

            When she woke up a few minutes later, she seemed startled. “How long have you been there?” She asked groggily.

            “Not long.”  
            She nodded, accepting the situation. “I’m sorry about last night…”

            “Nah, don’t worry about it.”

            When she sat up, the blankets slipped down and it turned out she was naked (again). I could feel my ears getting hot and I ducked my head before she pulled the blankets up, covering her breasts. “Yeah, sorry.”

            “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. I still hardly knew her, but I wanted to probe the topic, I wanted to find out what was going on.

            “I had a little too much to drink last night. Don’t worry about it.”

            “Is this a habit of yours?”

            She shrugged. “More or less.”

            “Maybe I should be around you more often when you’re drunk.”

            She looked surprised and then laughed. “Maybe.”

            It became a habit. I hardly knew anything about her and she hardly knew anything about me, but it became a habit where we drank together. We drank whatever we had in the apartments at the time and sometimes if we got drunk enough we would kiss again and we would laugh it off like it was nothing.

            It was a strange friendship to say the least, but it worked. And this was just one of our many adventures.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay....  
> I'm back now though, hopefully.

            The liquor store wasn’t big, it was a tiny building pretty much held together by some miracle of physics and sheer determination from the owners who every time it rained claimed that he didn’t want to spend ‘a goddamn dime on this goddamn building’. I always thought he was joking, but one day you could hear the frame shaking and creaking and it made me a little nervous that maybe this was a building code violation.

            I didn’t have the nerve to ask because I knew it probably was.

            It was another rainy day. I was sitting behind the only open register on a stool, leaning against the counter in front of me. It was raining just as hard as it always and the building was shaking, and the fluorescent lights were flickering every time another gust of wind blew through.

            “Anyone out there, Isabella?” The owner’s name was Kerrigan but he was never around so it was usually just the assistant manager, Tom, and I alone in the creaking building.

            “All quiet on the Western front.” I said, watching the rain hit the windows.

            It was a torrential downpour. There weren’t man cars on the road for a good reason; it had been hazardous for me to even drive here today. I could’ve called in sick, but then I wouldn’t get paid as much and I hoped to maybe earn a little extra this month to actually buy some alcohol of my own. Just because I worked at the store didn’t change the fact that I was broke and really couldn’t afford anything on the wages.

            Suddenly a car pulled into the parking lot. I sat straight up and blinked a few times to make sure it wasn’t a joke. “Tom!” I yelled. “Tom there’s a car in the parking lot!”

            “Very funny.” He said from the office behind me. I heard the pages of a book flip.

            “No, no there’s someone here!”

            “You better not be fucking around with me…”

            “ _There is someone here._ ”

            I heard his chair squeak and he got up and walked to the counter and stoof next to me, squinting at the parking lot. He clutched his chest dramatically before stumbling back and raising his arms in the air. “I would first of all like to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ!” He said before laughing and then looking at the car. “That is a weird ass car.”

            He was right, the car was a dinosaur by car standards. It was a miracle it had gotten here at all now looking at it.

            It had been at least a month or two since the incident at the flat with Flo. We had passed each other in the hallways a few times since and I could always hear her into the early hours of the morning, but we never had a proper conversation. We never properly stopped and talked about our lives.

            I mean I doubt she did mundane stuff like that. She seemed to live in her own world, where everything was too big to ignore and instead small things fell underfoot like small casual conversations. She was strange and I had to say that. Defiantly strange, but not in ‘call the landlord’ way but in the watch her and try and understand what it all is because no matter how long I try to get it out of my head I always think everything she does is somehow connected. I’m probably just imagining it.

            The car door opened and we both froze. We stared at the car and then watched the door close, the person invisible in the torrential downpour.

            “It’s probably just a drunk who needs his liquor.” Tom said and shrugged.

            “I don’t know.” I said, uncertain.

            The door opened and Tom stood straight up and I made myself look somewhat presentable on the chair and then I stopped and laughed a little. It was Flo.

            She had clearly been out in the rain for too long, her shirt sticking to her thin frame and her hair plastered to her head. She looked a little like a kitten that had just had a bath or a happy accident involving a pool or a puddle of some sort.

            “Could you recommend me good champagne?” She asked and then drifted towards the counter.

            “I’ll be going.” Tom said and then awkwardly walked back into his office and shutting the door behind him.

            “Hey.” I said, looking at her. Her mascara was starting to run down her face. “Are you okay?” I reached into a drawer below me and pulled out a pack of makeup wipes I kept on me and gave her one.

            “I don’t know. Probably.”

            “I can’t recommend you any champagne.” I said. “I’m a little on the broke side, can’t really afford anything here actually. The owner is just looking to make money off of this place, but he doesn’t know that you’re the first person to come in in three weeks.”

            “Really?” She laughed, wiping the mascara off of her face. “The first person in three weeks?”

            “Yeah, it’s kind of comical how much this restaurant is failing.”

            She nodded. “So champagne. Let’s buy some.”

            “I told you I don’t really know…”

            “No, no we’re going to buy three different kinds and then you’re going to come over tonight and we’re going to figure out which one is best while we celebrate the fact that I dumped my sorry excuse for an ex-boyfriend.”

            “This is the first proper conversation we’ve had in months.” I said, leaning forward on the counter.

            “I know. I’m kind of bad at maintaining relationships.”

            “I’ve noticed.” I grinned and she smiled back.

            “Champagne now, talking later.”

            I hopped off the stool and trailed behind her to the back of the store. We stood side by side, trying to pick which ones sounded fancier because while we didn’t want to admit it neither of us knew anything about any type of alcohol fancier than beer.

            I pulled a random bottle off the shelf with the name “Rabbit Heart” and she grabbed two more with titles I couldn’t see. I rang them up and put them in the bag, with little bits of conversation in-between.

            Tom came out of the office and looked back outside. “You can just go home, Isa.” He said. “No one else is coming. I’ll just say that you were here the whole time.”

            “Thanks.” I said and hopped off the stool. “See you back at home?” I looked at Flo.

            “Yeah.” She smiled. “See you at home.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the wait! I'm not going to lie this takes the least priority as far as updates go, making the updates few and far between. Thank you for your patience though, I'm really going to try to start updating this regularly after I finish the fic binge.  
> Xx  
> machinerisms

            I left my car in the lot of the liquor store and was riding in the passenger seat of Flo’s car. I could hardly see how the car was running on anything other than sheer spite and duct tape and it surprised me that the torrential downpour hadn’t completely flooded the car.

            “What do you do?” I asked as we drove home in silence.

            She was beautiful and I couldn’t deny it. The rain pounded harder against the roof of the car and my head pounded with it as I looked at her. The dim light illuminated her from the side and it made a nice silhouette of her, green eyes staring straight ahead and her lips slightly pursued as she drove. When I asked the question her eyebrows drew up for a curious second before falling back into their rightful place and her mouth broke out into a playful smile as a lofty laugh fell off of her lips and into the suspended air.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice is soft and for an instant I think maybe I’m in love with her, the way her eyes light up when she laughs with her response.

            “What do you do other than driving around in a rust bucket in the middle of the new great flood?” Now I was genuinely interested. I couldn’t imagine her holding a normal job (if I didn’t know better I would’ve expected her to be a pimp, a bloody therapist pimp), she seemed like she did nothing and everything and in the small front seat of her rusting sedan it felt like an intimate moment as I stared at her and then back at the empty road stretching in front of us. For a few crazy seconds at a time I do think I am truly in love with her, and then the idea is shaken out of my ears and back into the world as I understand that maybe I’m falling in love every few seconds with a concept, not an actual person.

            “I sing.”

            “You do?”

            “Are you surprised?”

            No, I wasn’t surprised about the singing, I was surprised she did anything at all that didn’t involve her dancing around drunk and kissing strangers in the early hours of the morning. “No, I’m not. You have a lovely voice.”

            She pulled into the lot next to the apartment building and glanced at me before turning away shyly. “Should I apologize for what happened?”

            “What do you mean?” I unbuckled my seat belt and reached for the door but she reached over me and set her hand on my forearm.

            Where her hand touched my skin it was like electricity and I paused for a second to stare at her hand. Her fingers were long and delicate; her nails unpainted and on her middle finger were a tattoo of a birdcage. I felt my chest tighten up and I knew if I were to hold onto to any sense of my sanity or control I couldn’t get drunk. It would be a disaster, between my inexplicable gravitation towards the strange woman sitting next to me and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about how she had kissed me in her drunken state and whether or not that was supposed to mean anything. I didn’t know what I would want the answer to be.

            I placed my hand over hers gently and I felt my hand light up and my chest continue to constrict and I glanced at her and I meant it to be a momentary glance, but it turned into my eyes trapped by hers. The rain pounded harder against the car and for a second I thought for a moment we might’ve kissed again but a huge crash of thunder made me jump and she removed her hand from my arm and a bolt of lightening came down from the sky like a sign from god. The entire area was jolted out of darkness and I could see the clear outline of the apartment building and the angry clouds above us. In the second the lightning lit up our world I could see her eyes half closed as they looked forward, avoiding me. Her lower lip was tucked beneath her teeth and I couldn’t tell what she was nervous about or even if she was nervous at all. At the next crack of thunder her eyes opened wide and stared straight ahead and when the lightning lit her up it looked almost as if she were about to cry.

            “We should go in before the storm gets worse.” I suggested and my voice jarred her from whatever other world she had entered in the past minute. “Flo?”

            “Hm?”

            “Are you okay?”

            “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” She unbuckled her seat belt from the car. “I just need to be drunk, I think.”

            “That won’t really solve anything. I thought you were upset about some breakup.”

            “It’ll solve something for a little while.” She sighed. “It’ll make me brave.”

            “Why do you need to be brave?” I was pushing it.

            “I don’t.” She sighed. “I want to do something but I just need to be ready for it.”

            “You’re being vague.”

            “I know.”

            We got out of the car and dashed into the building. My makeup was probably dripping down my face and my hair was plastered to my head. Florence didn’t look much better but she clutched the bag with the alcohol and there was a disturbing a haunted beauty about her even when she was soaked to the bone. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her or her face or her lips and I couldn’t stop thinking about that night even though it should’ve been out of my mind. I was attracted to her for no reason other than that she was mysterious and beautiful in her own way.

            We never talked on the way up and at the landing I suggested I would go into my apartment and get my alcohol too and I knocked hesitantly on the door to her apartment and she opened the door with an exuberant smile and I walked in. The stereo was playing some music from the eighties and on her kitchen table assorted bottles of alcohol were laid out and next to it were stacks of red solo cups.

            “You’re actually planning to get drunk?” I asked as I set a bottle of wine down next to the Rabbit Heart bottle.

            “Why not?” She laughed and grabbed my hands and spun me around the apartment. I laughed with her and looked into her eyes as it happened and the laugh bubbled up in my chest and escaped my mouth and in my hand was a cup of whatever intoxicating liquid it was and time began to slip through my fingers like water.

            I stopped counting the drinks I stopped counting the hours and the minutes and the words said and the time spent staring into her eyes on her couch and dancing to music. I stopped counting everything it seems and suddenly life seemed less confined and more freeing and I wondered with what was left of my mind if this was how _she_ saw the world, a place without counting or rhythm and she moved through it freely. I wondered as my cup ran empty again and I set it down a smaller coffee table and looked at Flo who had her head tipped back over the end of the couch are her lips were parted as she laughed at a joke I couldn’t remember. It all seemed hazy; it seemed so hazy.

            I was sitting next to her on the couch and we glanced at each other. Her pupils were dilated and without hesitation, without some thought telling me _no_ and against my better judgment I leaned across the couch and kissed her.

            It was completely unintentional, a result of alcohol and intense infatuation, but I kissed her nonetheless and she kissed me back. She tasted like assorted alcohol that didn’t match and then again so did I probably. I wasn’t sure if I was entirely aware of her hands, roaming and I knew I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of anything except her lips against mine and a dim memory from my apartment weeks before where in her drunken state she had kissed me and I couldn’t remember if I had kissed back.

            Time was subjective and I don’t remember how long I was there or how anything fell together after that moment. The world fell away in that drunken kiss and I guess that explains how I don’t remember how I woke up naked in her bed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

            I don’t usually make remarks about people’s kissing skills (mainly because most of my kissing is done drunk and I either don’t notice or don’t care) but Florence was a good kisser. I wish I could come up with a better word to make it sound less of an awkward sentence or be slightly more descriptive, but I was drunk even in this kiss so my thoughts more connected to make a _whoa_ thought.

            It was clear Florence knew what she was doing and my inebriated brain didn’t care why. I wanted more.

            I was blind, alcohol tended to do that to me. I maybe wasn’t physically blind although it sure felt like it as I closed my eyes and leaned into the kiss. The type of blindness I was feeling was more like a moral blindness as my thoughts stumbled across my drunken brain and I reached behind me and set the red solo cup down on the table before I spilled it on the couch.

            Her hands cupped my face (when did she put her drink down?) and pulled me closer and I realized my actions had no intention. I didn’t know why I did it and I still didn’t know and I probably should’ve ended it right there to avoid further complications but _damn_ it had been long since kissing someone felt like this and I didn’t. I didn’t stop it then, I didn’t back off and I didn’t go home and I’m still not entirely sure if I regret this decision.

            Where her fingertips met my face, the skin burned (wherever my hands were at this point I didn’t know) and it was this intense feeling and the slight insistent tugging in her hands that pulled me closer. Her lips moved against mine and slowly I was dragged on top of her, our bodies never losing contact.

            Everything would be awkward the next morning. I didn’t care. My brain switched on and off with whether or not I cared until Florence’s hands wandered down away from my face and towards my sides, drawing up in long strokes. My arms had nearly trapped her under me and suddenly without warning she drew back away from me and opened her eyes.

            I felt her eyelashes brush against my cheek and I was then forced to open my eyes a moment later and I know I would have to utter a half hearted ‘ _I’m sorry_ ’ even though I knew I couldn’t say it truthfully. Our eyes met silently and my chest heaved with breaths as my eyes met hers.

            They were green.

            We were completely silent and I looked away from her and went to push myself off of the other woman. I felt my biceps tense as I pushed my body weight off of her, but she grabbed my upper arm with one hand and with the other, turned my face back towards hers. No words. Complete silence.

            I could feel her ribcage expand and contract with each breath and her breaths seemed to fill the room, each breath seeming to scream she was too young to die. I’m not sure how this was projected, but it was and I could feel it running through my veins in a wild rush

            It was all done wordlessly and she closed the gap between us and kissed me and I kissed her back. I know I did, I had to because I highly doubt the next part would’ve happened if I hadn’t. I doubted the rest of the evening would’ve continued in the same manner if I hadn’t.

            In this moment I doubted the rest of my time living here would’ve continued in the same way after this.

            I hadn’t really kissed anyone in a while, to be honest. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in bars recently and I didn’t get out much. The people you met in a run down liquor store were less than desirable as well, leaving little room for going out to find people to kiss. When I did get kissed it was rarely like this, I was rarely kissed like _this_ and I was intent on trying to commit every part of it to memory because I wasn’t one to lie to myself. This was probably never going to happen again.

            Her tongue was teasing at my lower lip and they parted to let her in. It was all so slow and intentional and I welcomed it, I welcomed the drunk kissing that lasted like this. There were butterflies in my stomach as it happened and my hands found a way of resting just above her hips and I wasn’t even keeping track of hers anymore. I didn’t care.

            I was pushing my boundaries and my fingers teased at the waistband of her pants and I knew I had to be pushing it. I wouldn’t dare… she wouldn’t dare… and yet she didn’t stop me.

            The skin I found was warm and soft and I suppose if I had opened my eyes, I would’ve found it to be the color of porcelain as well. Her shirt was sheer and began to ride up near where my hands were and as they roamed up near the plane of her stomach her hands slipped under the back of my top and began to run across the bare skin there.

            I don’t think it was much longer after that before one of lost our shirt and it ended up on the floor it didn’t matter who’s was first because the other one joined its neighbor on the floor.

            Her skin was almost white. It looked like some sort of fine china and I was afraid I would break it. The best color to describe it _was_ porcelain and I found myself wanting nothing more than to explore that for the rest of the night (a feeling that was not necessarily new to me, but something I hadn’t felt for a while). There was heat rising in me and I knew it and as much as I wanted to ignore it.

            Against my better judgment I broke the contact between us and placed a small kiss in between her breasts. A sigh escaped from her lips and I heard it and tried to commit it to memory along with other sounds that night (none that I will mention, at least I don’t think I will) and she whispered something that I can’t quite recall now.

            Sometime in the near future of that moment we lost all our clothes and with that any last remaining doubts about the moment and at first it happened right there.

            I don’t feel like getting into the details of it.

            She was beautiful.

            I don’t have an exact timeline but at some point we moved off the couch for what I can only speculate now was for more room and a time after that (if I had to guess I’d say 90 minutes) I remember falling asleep next to her. I wasn’t considering the consequences and I fell asleep with her arm draped over me and I could feel her heartbeat where her body met mine and I fell asleep like that. I fell asleep in her embrace.

            The only reason I remember any of this is because of how the next morning went down.

            I woke up early and with a jolt. There was someone in my bed and then I realized it wasn’t my bed and shortly after that epiphany I noticed I was naked. Light was coming in through sheer curtains and I squinted, peeking over the bed and couldn’t find my clothes and I could only assume they were outside.

            I carefully lifted her arm off of me and slipped out of the bed, the cold air hitting my naked body. There was a throw blanket on the floor and I picked it up and wrapped it around me. I quietly opened the bedroom door and slipped out.

            I collected my clothes off the floor and as I looked around I picked up traces of my existence, trying to remove myself from what had happened.

            I didn’t want to but I had to.

            Once I was satisfied my existence was erased I left the apartment and padded across the hall. Once inside I locked the door and didn’t turn on a single light, for fear of her coming across the hall and talking to me. I didn’t want to confront what I did.

            I collapsed on my bathroom with a splitting headache, still wrapped in her throw blanket. And then for reasons I couldn’t place, I burst into tears.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work takes me longer to update than all of my fics (it takes less priority tbh), but I haven't abandoned it.

            “Who was that chick who came in here a couple weeks ago?” Tom asked, an unlit cigarette dangling limply from his middle and index finger. He was staring at it as if he was debating whether or not to light it. He had kicked the smoking habit months ago and had done a good job but every so often I catch him, staring at the same unlit cigarette.

            “Which one?” I asked, absently flipping through a magazine. It was another grey day outside and it wasn’t quite raining but it also wasn’t overcast. I was expecting it to rain any second – reflect my mood for the third week in a row.

            “The crazy redhead.” He sat his unlit cigarette down on the desk inside the manager’s office and walked back out and looked at me.

            “Her name’s Florence.” I bit back the bitter taste in my mouth as I remembered what had occurred three weeks ago. I also managed to remember every day following after I acknowledged his question.

            “Oh man you looked like you were ready to jump out your skin when she walked in.” I heard the crack of an unopened diet soda can – one of the things that Tom used to stave off his cigarette habit – and I turned around and looked at him somewhat angrily.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” I bit back.

            He shrugged. “What happened after you left that day?”

            _“Isabella.” She looked at me and I couldn’t meet her eyes, I couldn’t meet her piercing green gaze that made me feel even more exposed then I already was on that couch._

            I shook my head, clearing the memory. “Nothing, we went back to the apartment building and had a little drinking party.”

            Tom shrugged again. “Just wondering.”

            “What did you think happened?”

            “Nothing you’d admit to me anyways.”

            _I bit my lip and I wrapped my arm around her neck as she guided me back towards the bedroom. My legs were barely holding me up and I pressed a messy kiss to her mouth and closed my eyes – she still tasted like tea and a continuous future even under all of the alcohol._

            “Tom…” I was about to tell him nothing had happened in between us that day but I decided that I didn’t want to lie to Tom.

            “Yes?”

            “Never mind.”

            We sat in silence for a little longer.

            “Isabella this is a dead end job.” Tom said after about ten minutes.

            “I know.” I sighed. “Make your point.”

            “I’m just saying…” He paused. “Maybe you should consider not working here forever.”

            “Tom, I don’t plan to. I moved here to try and get some of my recording off the ground. This is a temporary job until I can…until I can find something I actually want to do.”

            “You have potential, Isabella.” He said. “I’m glad that you’re looking to get another job out of here.” He looked around. “Between you and me I think the sooner you get out the better, this building is an accident waiting to happen.”

            “I can’t wait until we get shut down for a building code violation and we have to tell Kerrigan.”

            “I don’t think Kerrigan even remembers he owns this place or pays us.”

            _I fell asleep in her bed and her arm was around me and I felt safe. The blankets on her bed were pulled around us and I felt safe._

            The truth of the matter was I had been avoiding Florence for the past few weeks. There was something about not wanting to face your neighbor after a night of drunken sex and I didn’t want to face her I guess for a lot of reasons. I didn’t want to have talk to her about it or have to deal with that weird period of dancing around each other and pretending it didn’t happen.

            It did happen and I don’t know if that bothered me more than anything. There was a part of me that missed her too, missed her enchanting beauty that managed to leave me breathless and there was something magnetic about her personality. It was terrible sneaking out in the mornings and back in at night to avoid drawing on her attention and it was terrible the way I would sometimes leave my lights off and pretend I wasn’t home.

            Maybe I was afraid of it happening again, except when I could fully process my actions and their consequences. Maybe I was afraid that I _didn’t_ fully regret my actions. I don’t know if I like her, that’s the thing I don’t know if it was loneliness that was driving me towards this morbid longing or genuine attraction.

            I bit my lip and my knee was bouncing up and down as I thought about it all. Would I run into her today? Would today be the day that I was forced to reckon with my feelings?

            “Iz.” I turned around, jarred and looked at Tom. “You alright?”

            “I just have a lot on my mind, Tom.”

            “I’m sending you home early this place is deserted once again.”

            “Tom you can’t just keep doing that.”

            “I’m the manager and I’m telling you to go home, Isa.”

            “Okay, Tom.”

            “Drive safe.”

            “Thanks.”

            I started up my car and sat in the driver seat for a few minutes. It felt like my head was going to explode with the amount of back and forth between myself. I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to see her again, but at the same time I felt such a pull to the other woman that I thought that our meeting would be inevitable.

            I put my car into gear and started driving towards the supermarket to pick up something to cook for dinner. I was thinking about maybe just making some pasta, but I was out of everything at this point in the apartment. The dreary day turned into a dreary and bleak night as I turned into the parking lot of the supermarket and parked the car.

            I grabbed a basket from the front of the store and threw in a couple boxes of pasta, grabbed a box of bagel bites, and wandered over to bread aisle where I picked up a loaf of sandwich bread and some peanut butter. After that I ended up buying some frozen fruits and vegetable.

            I was filling the flimsy plastic bag with pears when someone stood next to me and reached out. The hand was long, with thin spindly fingers attached to it and on the middle finger was a tattoo of a birdcage.

            My heart stopped momentarily and I kept my head down and pretended to be busy with my pears and I really thought I was getting away with it too.

            “Hello, Isabella.”

            I tried not to cringe when she spoke to me. “Hey, Florence.”

            We were silent for a few more moments and I was really trying hard to be interested in my pears.

            “I haven’t seen you around.”

            “I’ve been busy.”

            “You’ve been sneaking out of your own apartment, Isabella.”

            “No I haven’t.”

            “I know you’ve been avoiding me.”

            “I haven’t.” I said, putting my fifth pear in the bag.

            “What do you need five pears for?” Florence asked, peering over my shoulder.

            I was really keeping myself busy with the fruit. “Stuff.”

            “We’re adults you know.”

            “I know.”

            “Do you want to talk about anything that happened?”

            I put my sixth pear in the bag. “You know what? Not particularly.” I said kind of bitterly.

            “We were drunk, Isa.” She said, abruptly tying her bag. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

            She walked away and I angrily put more pears in my bag, checked out, and stormed to my car. I set the groceries down on the passenger seat and then peeked in.

            I slammed my head against the steering wheel before mumbling, “What the fuck am I going to do with twelve pears?”

           


	7. Chapter 7

            Most of the pears rotted before I actually got to do anything with them. I forgot how quickly fruit – especially soft fruit like pears – goes rotten. There were six sitting in the basket on the counter and they were in various states of decay after about a week. The sad brown pears seemed like a cruel and ironic metaphor for my life.

            I was sitting on the one and only comfortable chair in my living room with my computer open on my lap. I was reading through some unopened emails, an email from a friend in LA, an email from someone who wanted to contract me, and an email that should’ve been sent to my spam folder.

            I responded to the person who wanted to contract me to play keyboard for an album. It was one of those new artists from an underground scene who probably got started on Soundcloud or something along those lines. A record company had offered to help him make an album, but he said he needed someone who could work with a keyboard. The pay was decent (the contract was meant to be with the company, not the kid) so I accepted.

            Netflix was open in another tab on my browser and an Amazon shopping list was open in the other. Netflix wasn’t open to anything in particular; it was just the home screen giving me recommendations. That was also a kind of cruel metaphor for my life – a page full of things I _should_ do but won’t.

            I glanced towards the door when I thought this – expecting Florence to parade in any second. It was like this conflicting feeling because I wanted her to walk in and I wanted her to say something to me _finally_ and break the Stalemate of Pears. _Did I miss her?_ I wasn’t sure if _missed_ was the right word but I think I did. I think I missed her because it felt like I gravitated towards her, she was magnetic, and she was the sun. Florence was the sun and I was just a planet orbiting it and I was just orbiting and getting closer and closer and I was going to get sucked into this fiery red vortex sooner or later.

            I glanced at the door again like I was going to be caught before opening a new tab and going onto Facebook. I typed in Florence’s name in the search bar and waited for the results to form, but none did. I sighed angrily and closed the tab _of course_ she wouldn’t have a Facebook.

            No email response from Soundcloud kid yet.

            I drummed my fingers on the empty space of my laptop and bit my lip. I was off from work today and I didn’t know what to do with myself – I had been keeping myself busy with running to and from different gigs and keeping shifts at the liquor store and it had kept my mind from wandering.

            Consciously wandering, anyways. My dreams were an entirely different domain, something I couldn’t control no matter how hard I tried. My dreams were filled with things I couldn’t describe or begin to explain, flashes from that night that had happened weeks ago. I was thinking about her without actually thinking and that terrified me a little.

            I shut my computer and stood up, stretching out. It was the afternoon and I rummaged through some of the cabinets for snacks. I looked at the dejected pears and determined that they were not fit for human consumption. There was a package of Oreos sitting on the shelf and I pulled them out and flopped down on the chair again before opening my computer and loading some show on Netflix.

            _I should go clubbing tonight._ I thought idly as I ate another cookie. _Nothing like getting drunk off your ass to help you forget about the insane redhead across the hall._

            I resolved to leave the flat that evening, dressed up and ready to go. There was no target objective to this, no rhyme or reason really. I showered and dried out my hair before reapplying my eyeliner. It wasn’t nearly late enough to go out yet so I sat back down in the chair with my heels next to me.

            There was a furious and angry ball sitting in my stomach. It felt like a knot or a storm that was tearing apart my insides. I didn’t know why I was so nervous to go out, I used to go out all the time and it was never like this. It was always an adventure, or at least it used to be.

            I bit my lip, no doubt smudging my lipstick, before resuming to watch Netflix until ten when I picked up my shoes and walked out of the apartment.

            The light was off in Florence’s apartment and I breathed out a sigh of relief as I walked barefoot down the stairs. At the entrance I slipped my shoes on and walked out to my car and drove out to the club. It was eleven once I got there I parked 4 blocks out and walked to the club.

            The club was already mostly full by the time I got past the bouncers and I made my way through the crowd to the bar. I ordered whatever had the highest percentage of alcohol and leaned against the bar drinking it. I wanted to get absolutely smashed – I didn’t want to remember tonight.

            About three drinks later a fourth one came by from some girl across the bar. I lifted up the shot glass slid over to me and downed it while never breaking eye contact. I watched her blush and then duck her head away, giggling shyly. I laughed despite myself as two other girls nudged her and she glanced at me again. I was about to send a drink back to her when someone softly cleared her throat over the microphone.

            No one else seemed to notice this but me and instead of finishing the order I looked behind me, trying to find the stage. I aimlessly wandered onto the dance floor in a haze until the soft voice spoke again.

            I looked towards the stage and saw Florence standing there in a long sheer dress standing at a microphone wrapped in vines. I bit my lip as some other girl ran by and placed a glass of brightly colored liquid in my hand before scampering away in a cloud of giggles.

            She was singing and there were a few people playing instruments behind her – a makeshift band I supposed and I leaned on my back leg and watched her curiously. She was singing, what she was singing I wasn’t quite sure of, but she was singing and sure as hell she didn’t see me.

            The dress was very sheer, see through really. It was the kind of thing that left nothing to the imagination.

            Not that I needed to imagine anything.

            I guess that she wasn’t quite singing the right songs for a club, but nonetheless people seemed to be enjoying themselves. Drunken idiots were bumping into me from all sides and it felt kind of claustrophobic and as I drank another drink I wondered if I could find Florence backstage and apologize for…the pears?

            Why would I apologize for the pears?

            No, no. Not the pears.

            Apologize for hiding?

            For hurting her?

            Apologize?

            The dress left nothing to the imagination, not that I needed it anyways.

            She was there.

            This was a bad idea.

            She was there.

            I bit my lip and braced myself on someone else who laughed me away.

            I stumbled through the crowd and towards somewhere that looked like it would lead me behind the stage. No one stopped me from pushing through a dark wine colored curtain into a hallway dimly lit by fluorescent lights. She had stopped singing – I heard pounding electronic music instead of her voice.

            Her voice.

            God.

            Florence.

            God.

            “Isabella?” I looked up and Florence was standing there, puzzled. “What are you doing here?”

            “What are _you_ doing here?” I countered.

            “I asked first.” She smiled, coyly.

            “I’m here…” I emphatically gestured with my hands. “To get _wasted.”_

“Do you agree that you’re sufficiently there yet?” Florence asked, a gentle hand reaching for my shoulder and guiding me into a small room.

            “I’d agree.”

            She opened the door to the room and gently nudged me in, although I complied rather easily. There wasn’t much else I could do. She followed and shut the door and it became clear we were in a dressing room. I sat down on the small couch in the room and looked at her.

            The room had racks of dusty clothing – none of which belonged to Florence, but she looked herself once over in a rusting mirror. She glanced at me and I bit my lip, I didn’t quite understand why I was here. Why was I in this room? Why was I with Florence again?

            “Why am I here?” I asked.

            “What do you mean?” She asked, sitting down on a stool close to the mirror. “Here meaning the club, this room, or existence?”

            I thought for a moment. “This room.”

            “You’re drunk, Isa.” She said. “You’re not yourself.”

            “You’re not answering my question.”

            “Just keeping you safe for now. I’ll drive you home and you can pick up your car in the morning sometime.”

            “What makes you think I can’t get home by myself?”

            “Haven’t you ever heard that you aren’t supposed to get drunk alone?” She asked, pulling a bottle of _whatever_ out of a bag.

            “I have heard that but it seems I make bad decisions when I get drunk with other people.”

            She stood up, opened the bottle, and then sat down next to me. She took a swig out of the bottle and her dark red lipstick stained the opening of the bottle. It created a place on her lips that wasn’t as dark as the other spaces. She then passed the bottle to me.

            “Being drunk means you’re probably going to make a bad decision. I have to catch up to you.”

            “What?” I handed the bottle back to her.

            “You’re miles more drunk than I am.”

            “Then fine, chug this bottle and we’ll be even.”

            “No, no, but then I’d be _more_ drunk than you which would not work.”

            “What wouldn’t work?”

            She shrugged. “The equality of bad decisions I guess.”

            “I’m sorry.” I mumbled, a headache starting to set in. “Sorry for the pears.”

            “The pears?” Florence laughed. “What did you even do with all those pears?” She whispered, suddenly quiet.

            “Most of them rotted.”

            She turned and looked at me. “You don’t say.”

            I turned to face her. “I do say.”

            And then she leaned forward and kissed me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting!  
> Just a little update I've been cooking up :p

            “We have got to stop meeting like this.” I gasped as Florence’s lips departed mine and made contact with my neck. I was pushed up against the wall, my dress starting to bunch up around my thighs, as Florence’s hands sat higher on my ribcage holding me in place.

            “Are you arguing?”

            I shook my head. “No.” I managed to rasp out as she kissed me again.

            I’ve never been on drugs, but I can only assume that this is what it feels like. Once she kissed me again, I knew I was done for. All I could think about since that night was kissing her again – waltzing into her apartment and kissing her and declaring that I didn’t know what the hell this was, but all I knew was that I wanted to kiss her again.

            This was different. The first time it was soft drunkenness, where everything was still tentative and new. Now I had both of my hands pinned to the wall and Florence nipping at my collarbone. This was messy and drunk and _hot_ it was not the end goal of tonight but Florence was a drug and I was hooked on it. Her free hand was bringing up the end of my dress around my hips and I heard myself whimper when the cold air hit the top of my thighs.

            Wordlessly, she dropped to her knees on the floor and I closed my eyes and bit my bottom lip to keep quiet. She hooked my left leg over her shoulder and glanced up at me. We made eye contact and I nodded before closing my eyes again and stifling a moan.

            “Stop…teasing.” I gasped as she kissed up my thigh.

            “Why would I do that?” She asked, her voice a little hoarse.

            “’Cause I asked.”

            “You did.”

            She pushed what was left of my underwear to the side and I felt her mouth on me and it felt like a million explosives in my head. I couldn’t even be bothered to try and keep quiet as her name fell from my lips like a prayer.

            “Fuck, Florence…please.”

            “Please, what?”

            I felt my hips involuntarily jerk at the loss of contact as I scrambled to form coherent thoughts. “Please make me come.”

            She had three long fingers inside of me and her mouth rejoined her hand as streams of incoherent sounds poured out of my mouth and I shuddered around her fingers before collapsing and slowly sliding down the wall and joining her on the floor.

            It took a moment to form thoughts before I leaned forward to kiss her hard, hands tangling in her red hair, and I pushed her back against the floor and crawled over her so I could straddle her hips.

            “Your turn.”

           

* * *

 

            I woke up wrapped in soft sheets, alone. Light came in through sheer curtains and I squinted through the light as I began to remember the events of the previous night. I smiled, despite myself, because why wouldn’t I be smiling? I had a night of fucking mind-blowing sex with Florence and now I was back in her apartment.

            I sat up and pulled the sheets with me and I glanced out the slightly open bedroom door. Florence was standing in front of the stove with a kettle, wearing a robe of sorts. It was off white with pink flowers and it barely reached the tops of her legs. She was absently humming while pouring the water into two cups and turning around. The robe was loosely tied in the front, making a long V-neck down her front.

            She stepped back in the room and arched her eyebrows curiously. “You’re awake.” She commented before handing me one of the mugs of tea.

            “Yeah.”

            I was trying very hard not to remember the events of the night before, how we didn’t even truly get into the apartment before she slammed the door behind us and pinned me against it. I was trying very hard not to remember last night.

            “So you didn’t run off this time.”

            I paused, unsure of what kind of answer that prompted.

            “No.”

            “I think this deserves…some discussion.” Florence said, sitting cross-legged on the bed and I averted my eyes and ended up staring at the wall behind her.

            “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be at that bar…it wasn’t planned I swear.”

            Florence laughed. “I could tell from the way you stumbled backstage.”

            “It won’t happen again.”

            “Is that a statement or an apology?”

            “Apology.”

            “I think this warrants a discussion though, Isa.” Florence took a thoughtful sip of her drink, and I did the same as I tried to alleviate the headache from my hangover.

            “You’re really good at kissing, and all of,” I waved my one hand emphatically. “ _That_. And I was wrong to avoid you and not work this out before. I’m just not sure what this is all meant to be.”

            “It doesn’t have to be anything.” Florence shrugged.

            “Okay.” I looked at her and I was lost in her green eyes again and despite it all I wanted to kiss her again. “You look good in that robe.”

            She set her mug down. “Really, now?”

            “Mmhm.” I also set my mug down and I took the edges of the front of the robe in my hands as I tugged her forward and kissed her, my hands moving back around her neck and tangling in her hair.

            Florence kissed back, her hands settling on my waist as she pushed me back against the bed. It was vaguely reminiscent of last night, the sense of urgency, and the feeling of her hips rocking into mine.

            “I have to go to work later.” I gasped as she nipped at my jaw.

            “Then we should make this fast.”

* * *

 

            “ _Someone’s_ awful chipper, today.” Tom said, drinking from a to go coffee cup. “Spill.”

            I shrugged. “I’m in a good mood.”

            It probably helped that I had 3 orgasms prior to going to work.

            “No there is no way you’re in that good of a mood, it’s Sunday.”

            “Get over yourself, Tom. You’re just bitter.”

            “Whatever you say, Isa.” He leaned on the register. “But I’d bet it has something to do with that crazy redhead.”

            “It seems everything has to do with her.” I reflected.

            “Well if she keeps you in this good of a mood, she can stay.”

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a new day, it's a new chapter.  
> Enjoy!

            I rolled out of bed, put water in the coffee maker, and poured a few spoonful’s of ground coffee into the coffee filter of Florence’s coffee maker before hitting the little brew button. The dark brown liquid dripped into the coffee pot and I watched it hypnotically for a couple minutes before searching for a mug to put the coffee in.

            If you had asked me a year ago where I thought I would be right now, I wouldn’t have answered with ‘making coffee naked while standing in my friends with benefits-ish apartment’. I don’t know how I would’ve answered, but for sure this wouldn’t have been it.

            “You shouldn’t have.” I looked up from the drawer I was looking in to see an equally naked Florence walked through the kitchen.

            “I should have because you know we’re both absolutely awful without coffee.” I answered nonchalantly. “And it’s not done yet.”

            “Have you heard back from the kid who needs a keyboardist yet?” She asked, peering into the coffee maker.

            “Yeah, I’m actually meeting him at a studio downtown today. It’s paying pretty decently and I’m hoping I can use this to get some recommendations. I’d like to take a music career off the ground and quite working at the liquor store.”

            “But then you’d lose the employee discount!”

            “I’m losing my employee discount if the health department comes in and deems our building unsafe for any living creature. Not to mention I feel like it’s a front for organized crime or something and I’d like to get out before the cops come.”

            “Is it really a front for organized crime?”

            “Nah.”

            Most of my mornings went like this. Not all of them, but most. You wouldn’t hear me arguing either, the sex was fantastic and sometimes we caught a matinee movie. I haven’t been in this good of a mood in weeks and it was all because of Florence.

            I slowly learned more about this woman who seemed to be a never-ending mystery. She sang gigs at bars and clubs and coffee shops, she perused local thrift stores and bookstores, and a part of me still thought she was getting the money from being a pimp on the side.

            I knew that wasn’t true.

            She was mysterious and she was lovely and as I watched her pour the coffee into her mug, I got the inkling that I might be the tiniest bit in love with her. It was more than inkling, really, but who wanted to admit that they were love with a potential practitioner of dark magic?

            I also knew _that_ wasn’t true.

            “I’m meeting with them at noon, what time is it now?” I asked as she handed me a cup of coffee.

            “Hm,” She dug through a drawer, looking for a watch. “It’s 11:30.”

            “Fuck!” I set the mug down and raced into the bedroom to find my clothes from last night. “I have to go!”

            “I hope it goes well!” She called as I dashed out the door, across the hall, and grabbed some more suitably clothes.

            I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth, and reapplied my eyeliner before grabbing my keys and running down the steps two at a time to get to my car. I unlocked it with my left hand as I pushed the door to the flats open with my right and jumped into the drivers seat in record time.

            My tires were squealing on the pavement as I sped to the studio, nervously drumming my hands on the steering wheel. I had most likely forgotten something in Florence’s flat, but I could always pick that up later. It was no matter now; I had to be at the studio.

            This could be my gateway into bigger and better things, whatever that meant. It could be like jumping through a portal and into the world of musically proficient people where I could be in Facebook groups or some shit where we exchanged contact information and recommendations and we talked about visiting Las Vegas in our spare time.

            I’d never admit it, but stardom was what I was looking for. Maybe not stardom in the traditional sense, but I wanted to be _big_. I wanted to make a name for myself. And maybe I wasn’t in the place to admit it at this very second, but I knew that couldn’t happen if I stayed here.

            But that would mean leaving Florence, which I didn’t want to do.

            I parked the car at 11:58 and ran into the building, smoothed out my hair, and introduced myself to the receptionist. She directed me back a couple rooms and asked me if I needed anything and I requested coffee because fucking hell I still needed some fucking caffeine.

            “Ms. Summers!” I shook hands with an older man with greased hair and fresh pressed navy suit. “So glad to hear you could make it!”

            “I’m glad, too.” I smiled nervously and then turned to the young kid who was wearing jeans and a mangled shirt.

            “You’re Jordan, the one I’ve been emailing?”

            “Yes’m.” He shook my hand and spoke with a heavy American Southern drawl.

            “How did a Yank like you end up here?” I asked, genuinely curious why he wasn’t seeking help on the other side of the globe.

            “Ms. Summers how fast do you think we can push out a studio album for Mr. Tate here?”

            “I, uh…” I was taken off guard by how forward he was. “That really depends on what we’re working with. I can’t give you any promises if you can’t show me what you’re planning to turn into an album off the bat.”

            Jordan had surprisingly complete demos and luckily for everyone involved I figured I could record and put together tracks in about two weeks and a have a complete album ready for distribution in somewhere between three to six.

            “So what are you doing after this?” The producer asked as Jordan mixed something in a soundproof booth.

            “I’m probably getting home, going to see if I can pick up an extra shift maybe.”

            “No, not like that.” He straightened the collar of his suit and for a moment all I could think was _dear god do not hit on me_. “I’m Owen Haverford, what are your next recording plans after this?”

            “Recording plans?” I tried not to sound incredulous. “Well I don’t really have any per say, I’d be waiting for the next call like this one.”

            “Really?” His eyebrows rose curiously. “You have a real knack for this, I think you could go far?”

            “You really think that?” I asked. “Hold on,” I picked up the intercom leading into the recording booth. “Jordan, less of whatever that squeaking noise was, it sounds like shit.”

            “Yes’m.”

            “Would you mind if I contacted you in the future?”

            “Not at all, I’m always looking for jobs.”

            “Excellent.” He smiled. “Now do you really think Jordan has talent?”

            I drove home slower than I drove there, mostly because I didn’t want to get a speeding ticket when I had nowhere to be. The conversation with Owen Haverford was rattling around in my mind. He thought that I had what it took to go somewhere in the industry, and it took _guts_ to say that. You didn’t just tell anyone on the street that.

            I parked the car by the flats and began to wonder what I would do for dinner that night. I didn’t know if Florence was around and I couldn’t tell from the parking lot.

            It was drizzling when I stepped out of the car and I shielded my hair the best I could before letting myself inside and walking upstairs. I still couldn’t tell if Florence was home, so I let myself into my flat, boiled some water for tea, and booted up my keyboard and the computer monitor attached to it.

            There were a couple folders full of demos I had saved and I browsed through some of them to see if there was one that struck my fancy, but all of them felt old. They felt like they needed something else and I didn’t know what.

            I poured the tea into a cup and stared out the window towards the grey London skyline in the distance. I could feel something big starting here, although I didn’t know exactly what it was or exactly where it would lead me. All I knew was that I felt that I should take this train to the end of the line.


End file.
